


13 out of 10

by earlgreytea68



Series: Hygge [2]
Category: Shenanigans (Original Universe)
Genre: Babyfic, M/M, unabashed fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-19 23:46:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11908743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: “It’s an invasion,” Max told Nicholas the night before the wedding. “I’m sorry, I know you meant to get married, but we’re going to war instead.”(It's what happily ever after looks like.)





	13 out of 10

**Author's Note:**

> Do you know what I needed to sit and write tonight? BABYFIC. SO MUCH BABYFIC.

They were married in June because it worked best with Max’s schedule.

“Life of a professor’s husband,” Max warned Nicholas. “Chained to the rise and fall of the school year.”

Nicholas grinned at him and said, “Eventually we’ll have kids and be chained to the rise and fall of the school year anyway. This is good practice.”

They decided against being married in Iowa. While they were making friends among their colleagues, they were basically already married to those friends. They had never known a world where Nicholas and Max weren’t Maxolas, and so it seemed silly to invite many of them to a ceremony formalizing what to them was simply the state of the world.

They therefore decided to get married in Maryland, near Max’s family, to whom they were both much closer than Nicholas’s, who Nicholas still maintained cordial but formal relations with.

They had both wanted a small and casual wedding. The casual was easy to pull off, as it was just a matter of style. The small was harder to do. Max’s family was big and seemed to keep getting bigger. Nicholas felt like every night Max’s mom called with some random fifth cousin they’d forgotten to invite. Max’s sister Jenna, who’d had the family wedding before theirs, sent them whiskey for support.

Max said, as they drained the whiskey bottle together, “You have such a normal number of family members coming to our wedding. My family members are like minions.”

“Minions?” echoed Nicholas.

“From _Despicable Me_ ,” Max said. “Have you not seen _Despicable Me_? Oh, my God, we must rectify this immediately.”

So they drunk-watched _Despicable Me_ , which was honestly, Nicholas thought, an excellent choice. Max sent a selfie to Jenna of them with her bottle of whiskey and _Despicable Me_ in the background with the text, _Great gift! Thanks!_ and Jenna wrote back, _You two are so weird_.

Later, when they crawled into bed having accomplished none of the wedding planning they were supposed to have accomplished that evening, Max said, “It could be us, you know. I want it to be us.”

“What?” Nicholas asked sleepily, as Max curled up against him. Max tended to do this more often when he was slightly tipsy.

“Adopt little girls. I can’t wait to adopt little girls with you. Or little boys. Whatever. The point is I can’t wait. I mean, I _can_. I _will_. But anyway. We’re going to have fun.”

Nicholas smiled and ran his hand up and down Max’s arm, mostly because he could, and kissed Max’s temple and said, “Yes.”

“Can I tell you a secret?” asked Max.

“Always,” said Nicholas. “You know that.”

“I worry you’ll be better at it than I will,” said Max. “Being a dad. I mean, you went to school for years to learn how to deal with children, and I just...deal with college students. I mean, I’ll be a pro once they get to be college students, but yeah.”

“And I worry you’ll be better at it than I will,” Nicholas confessed honestly, “because I’m only used to kids being my patients, and maybe I won’t know what to do when it’s my kid. And because you’re good at fucking everything you put your mind to, so there’s that.”

“I love that the fact that I can make a proper omelet to you means that I must be good at everything. Like, literally you developed this opinion of me after I stuck some biscotti in an oven and, like, used a French press.”

“And sucked me off,” Nicholas said. “Don’t forget that I include ‘giving head’ into the list of things you’re good at.”

“Oh,” said Max, unconcerned, “I am fucking _spectacular_ at giving head.”

Nicholas laughed. “You’re going to be a spectacular dad, too.”

“Should we even be having this conversation?” asked Max. “It sounds gross. These should be two separate conversations.”

“The conversation about sex and the conversation about children should be separate?” remarked Nicholas. “Because ordinarily one follows the other.”

“Not with our biology,” Max replied. “Our biology keeps them very separate.”

***

At Christmastime, Max’s sister Jenna had a baby girl, a tiny little bit of fluff they named Lily. Nicholas was absolutely in love with her. He loved Max’s nephew Finn and older niece Ella as well, of course. But Nicholas had not been around when Finn and Ella had been tiny newborns. Their bond with Max was something Nicholas could only envy, Max’s years-long familiarity with who Finn and Ella had been. Nicholas only knew who they were becoming. For this reason, Nicholas admitted to himself secretly that he adored Lily. On their wedding weekend, Nicholas volunteered to watch Lily while the rest of Max’s family ran around trying to get things set up.

“It’s an invasion,” Max told Nicholas the night before the wedding. “I’m sorry, I know you meant to get married, but we’re going to war instead.”

Nicholas laughed at him. “Should I show up with weapons tomorrow?”

“Just bring your rapier wit,” said Max mournfully.

Nicholas laughed again. “You sound so very glum when you say that.”

“Because I want to be married already,” Max sulked. “I want your rapier wit _tonight_.”

“Oh,” said Nicholas after a second. “Is ‘rapier wit’ a euphemism? I thought you thought I really did have--”

“This is a stupid superstition,” Max interrupted him. “About not being able to be together the night before the wedding. It’s a stupid superstition.”

“It’s a little thing that’s going to make your mother very happy,” Nicholas said gently, because it was true. Max’s mother wanted him to spend the night at their house. Jenna and Brittany were sleeping over, too. She seemed to want one last family hurrah, and Nicholas thought it was sweet, considering his family was doing nothing but showing up for the ceremony (which he was fine with).

“And you’ll be fine with Mark with the kids?” Max asked, because that was Nicholas’s response to being kicked out of the house: he would watch Jenna’s kids with her husband, who he liked and who would doubtless need the help.

“More than fine.”

“Nicholas,” Max said.

“Yes,” Nicholas prompted.

“When this is done, and we’re married, let’s seriously look into what we have to do to adopt. Because you’ve been cuddling Lily all weekend and I’m not sure I can stand it anymore.”

Nicholas blinked, caught off-guard, and then said slowly, processing, “Oh. Right. Yes. If you--”

“I’d say that if this is too fast for you we can hold off, but you’ve been cuddling Lily all weekend lit up like a Christmas tree over her. So I don’t know, I think we’re ready. I think I don’t want to wait. I think, what would we even be waiting for? Let’s have a baby together. I really want to.”

“Yes,” said Nicholas, trying to nod and kiss Max all at the same time. “Yes.”

***

It was a dizzying amount of information to wade through, and a dizzying amount of choices to make, and in later years, when Max tried to think back, he was sure the adoption process was fraught and emotionally exhausting and nerve-wracking, and he knew that he and Nicholas had had endless agonizing conversations about what to do, but what he remembered most about all of it was the first time he held their little girl. And Max had wanted a baby with Nicholas so very much but maybe also had been secretly worried that it would turn out to be a mistake when their lives had been so very happy, and then they brought Piper home and she was _perfect_. She fit into their lives with a snugness that astonished Max. They snapped and quarreled with each other when their stress levels ran high, and they fell into bed exhausted at night, and there were times when Max felt at the end of his rope, but he never regretted for a single instant the fact of Piper. He watched Nicholas with her, doing voices for storytime, or sprawled on his stomach putting elaborate train sets together, or being taught the names of all of the ponies on My Little Pony, and he loved both of them so much he thought his heart would burst with it.

Jane sent them a bunch of manga that Max watched Nicholas flip through.

“Hmm,” Max remarked, “I’m not sure it’s quite age appropriate,” while Piper tried to rip the pages.

“Jane says you’re never too young to start reading manga,” Nicholas replied, reading the note Jane had sent.

“Don’t rip the book, lovebug,” Max told Piper. “I think I want to read it later.”

Nicholas laughed. “You’re in charge of sending the thank-you note to Jane, seeing as the gift was really for you.”

Caroline sent a completely practical stash of diapers and _Make Way for Ducklings_ accompanied by a gorgeous framed black-and-white photo of the sculpture in Boston Public Garden, which Caroline had signed underneath the scrawled note, _For Piper -- may the world make way for you_ , and maybe Nicholas looked a little teary-eyed and Max said, “I’m totally telling Caroline her gift made you cry,” and Nicholas said, “Don’t you dare.”

Hazel sent art supplies and a poster advertising her latest artistic endeavor.

Blake sent a really beautiful mobile composed of birds and Nicholas looked at it and said, “Huh. It’s actually a really lovely gift,” and Max read the note, “This is to make your baby think pterodactyls are coming to get her.” There was a moment of silence. Nicholas said again, “Huh.” Piper tried to eat one of the birds.

Jonah and Elliot sent an entire box full of the most elaborate baby clothing Max had ever seen in his entire life. Nicholas pulled outfit after outfit out, each more embellished and impractical than the last, until there was a frothy pile of them on the floor for Piper to tumble into.

Max said, after a moment, “I don’t think we have anywhere nice enough for Piper to wear any of that to.”

Nicholas said, “I feel like we should get her christened or something with these outfits.”

Max said, “I feel like we should get her crowned empress or something with these outfits.”

Nicholas laughed and said, “It’s Elliot’s aesthetic. It’s his way of showing he really cares. He picked these all out himself very carefully to display his affection for her.”

And Max didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about Elliot one way or the other but Nicholas’s voice, warm and fond in a nostalgic way, made Max think that the gift must have been the perfect gesture on Elliot’s part, and if it made Nicholas feel comfortable, that was good enough for Max.

“Will Elliot be okay with Piper wearing them to the playground?” asked Max.

Nicholas laughed again.

Piper was thirteen months old when they brought her home, already toddling around on uncertain legs. Shay, by contrast, was only six months old, and Max marveled at how tiny she was, and how _not mobile_ she was.

“She just lays there,” Max remarked, watching Shay wave her arms and legs frantically at the train-and-pony show her older sister was putting on for her. Piper, four by the time Shay arrived, had been eagerly preparing for an audience basically her entire life. When they took her to Boston the year before as the tail end of a trip to visit Max’s family, their friends found her so performative that Elliot said thoughtfully, “She’s going to end up starring in a podcast,” and Jonah laughed and said, “Have her look me up when she’s ready for an acting mentor.”

“She’ll move around soon enough,” Nicholas mumbled, from where he was trying to doze, his head on Max’s lap. Shay was not sleeping through the night and last night had been Nicholas’s turn on watch. “Enjoy the reprieve.”

Max absently combed his hand through Nicholas’s hair and let him doze and watched their daughters and said much later, “I’ve enjoyed all of it,” and even though he said it softly and he’d thought Nicholas was sleeping, Nicholas said, “Yeah, me, too,” and kissed Max’s stomach.

Shay did move around before Max was ready for it. She crawled with enthusiasm, chasing after Piper. She skipped walking entirely to move right onto running. She was fearless and never slowed down, no matter how many skinned knees and bruised shins he and Nicholas had to soothe. Shay simply tackled the world, wrestled it into submission; Piper dreamed about it more. And if Max had been low-key worried how his daughters would feel about each other, he was relieved that they grew up apparently passionately cognizant of how to defend the other. Shay was unfailingly protective of Piper’s sensitivity, Piper was unfailingly calm when talking Shay back from her impulsiveness. They fought violently, too, of course, but their alliance against outsiders was absolute.

“We were like that,” Brittany remarked on a summer evening when they were home for a visit, watching the girls trying to trap fireflies together with their cousins. “Do you remember, Jenna? When we were kids?”

“Ha,” Jenna replied. “So much. Yes.”

“Good,” said Nicholas, sounding satisfied. “That’s what I wanted. I wanted them to be like you.”

“Awww,” said Jenna and Brittany in unison.

“Stop,” Mark said good-naturedly. “Must you always be the good son-in-law with all the melty lines?”

“Yes,” Max rejoined, “that’s how he snagged me.” And he said it lightly but he also knew that Nicholas had not felt that way about his siblings, and that Nicholas had never said a word in opposition to Max’s desire to have multiple children but Nicholas must have secretly worried, but he’d gone along with it anyway, and Max was relieved it had turned out okay.

“Thanks,” Max said, later that night, so much later, when the girls had collapsed into heavy sleep on the floor of their grandparents’ living room, tangled with Ella and Finn and Lily and Brittany’s son Noah. Max’s parents refused to get air conditioning, and it was sticky in the room, and the crickets were loud outside, but it reminded Max of his own childhood, these hot summer nights full of contentment.

“Mmm,” Nicholas said sleepily. “Anytime. For what?”

“Having the kids with me. I don’t think I could have done this with anyone else.”

Nicholas opened one eye and smiled at him and said, “You’d always be a good dad, you know. It isn’t me making you a good dad.”

“I don’t think I would have had as much fun,” Max amended.

“I can’t argue with that,” Nicholas agreed.

On Shay’s first day of kindergarten, he and Nicholas took her to school together, and told her to have a good day, and she didn’t even turn around to wave good-bye at them, she just walked right into the school building, and Max just about made it to the car before he cried and cried into Nicholas’s shoulder, feeling heartbroken.

When he cried himself out, and Nicholas smoothed his hair and kissed his head one last time, and he composed himself and Nicholas drove them onto campus because Max had to teach that afternoon and fuck, that was terrible timing, Max said, very carefully, “I think we should have another baby.”

Nicholas said, “That baby will also grow up and go to school. That’s what babies do.”

“I just feel like we’re not done yet. Don’t you feel that way? I kind of want a newborn. We never got to have a newborn and I thought I was fine with that but now I’m sitting here and maybe I do want the demands of a newborn.”

Nicholas was silent for a long moment, looking at the Gothic building that held Max’s office.

Max said miserably, “Fuck, I shouldn’t have brought this up today, sorry. Listen, let’s go to work and then pick Shay up and take the kids for a celebratory dinner and we’ll talk about this later--”

“No, you’re right,” Nicholas said. “I’ve been thinking the same thing for a while. And I thought maybe it would go away, because we’re finally out of all the baby madness and when we were in it I thought it would be lovely to sleep through the night and not buy diapers and not worry as much about childcare and instead I--”

“Want to have another baby?” finished Max eagerly.

“Let’s have a newborn,” said Nicholas sheepishly.

So they had a newborn. She was the tiniest thing Max had ever seen, and Piper and Shay were awe-struck at her tiny fingers and tiny toes and tiny nose. Max and Nicholas were also awe-struck, but Piper and Shay were more vocal about it. They named her Matilda, but Piper and Shay always called her Mattie and it stuck. She turned out to be the last of her generation in Max’s family, and as such she was perhaps spoiled more than was good for her; Max couldn’t bring himself to worry much, especially since he participated in the spoiling. But she grew up sweet-tempered and kind and Max often marveled at her.

On her first day of kindergarten, he and Nicholas took her to school together, and told her to have a good day, and she didn’t even turn around to wave good-bye at them, she just walked right into the school building. He and Nicholas went back to their car and sat in it for far longer than anyone else in the parking lot did, silent and introspective.

Nicholas said finally, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Max said, and took a deep breath.

“We’re done,” Nicholas said.

“Yeah,” Max agreed.

“It’s okay to be sad.”

“I know.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“I mean, we’re not done,” Nicholas said finally. “The teenage years have just begun for us. We’re just...done with babies.”

“I think the teenage years will be enough,” Max said, and then he looked at Nicholas, and then suddenly he smiled. “I’m happy. I mean, I’m sad, about the babies, I’ll miss our babies, but I love who they’ve become, and I feel like having a child, it turns out, is getting to fall in love with every single version of that child, and probably I’ll never stop missing who they were but I love so much who they are and I can’t wait to find who they’ll _be_. Am I making sense?”

“Sense enough,” said Nicholas.

“So I’m happy. I’m happy now because I feel like you and I, we’ve been on this massive adventure, and we did a pretty good job, we got three kids off to school, like, it’s an accomplishment, we should be proud of ourselves.”

Nicholas was grinning at him now, that warm, open, cozy-blanket grin Max had fallen for so hopelessly all those years ago when Nicholas was just the 13-out-of-10 who was a good tipper. Nicholas said, “Yes. We should be.”

“We,” Max said, feeling giddy in a way he hadn’t in a while but that felt vivid to him abruptly, felt _right_ to him, the way Nicholas had always made him feel and he hadn’t let himself _feel_ it in a long time, “are pretty fucking good at being parents.”

“Don’t get cocky,” Nicholas said. His voice was swamped with fond amusement. “You’re going to jinx us.”

Max leaned over the gearbox in between them and kissed Nicholas fiercely and said, “I love you. So much more today than I did that day by the Charles when you proposed. I’m so happy you came with me to Iowa. I’m _so_ happy you didn’t let me let you stay in Boston. I’m so happy you fought for us. Have I ever said that? Thank you. Thank you for not letting me let you go. Thank you for loving me as much as you’ve always loved me and always trusting that I wasn’t going to hurt you when I know you’d been hurt so badly and that must have been so hard and you’ve always made it look so easy, loving me, and I--”

“Max. It _is_ easy. I think you might be a little hysterical here--”

“I’m not, I just _love_ you, and--let me just say this--we’ve spent the last dozen years of our life being so busy running around after kids that I’m not sure I’ve really told you but this is the best life. I’m so glad I got this life. I’m so glad I got you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“Max.” Nicholas laid his hand on the back of Max’s neck, tangled his fingers into Max’s hair. “I didn’t think second chances looked like this. I need to thank you, because you came along at a time when I had kind of given up on anything like this, when I was ready to settle for just something I could tolerate, and instead there was you, and the way that you just so relentlessly love me and want me and brought me to Iowa and gave me three children and, _Max_. I hope you have never thought for even one fucking second that I am not as unbelievably glad that I got you.”

Max looked at Nicholas, who was so much more familiar to him now than his own face, and said, smiling, “I’d still rate you a 13 out of 10.”

Nicholas laughed and said, “I think you’re biased.”

Max said, “Let’s go home and fuck.”

Nicholas said, “We’re supposed to work.”

Max said, “Uh-huh.” And canceled class.

 


End file.
